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.TTTJLTY 4th, 1861. 



LOWVILLE: 

rRIWTBf AT THB JOURNAL & REPUBLICAN BOOK AND JOB OFFIRS. 



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ORATION 



The Anniversary of '76, is again upon us. The Fourth 
of July, glorious in the annals of the world, has again dawn- 
ed. The cannons have saluted the rising sun ; the drums 
and fifes have uttered their refrains, and all is yet anima- 
tion and hope on this day of hallowed memories. 

Full of love for freedom, and devotion to the country 
Washington saved and honored, the gathering crowd has 
met to greet its natal day. Our dependence on God hag 
been acknowledged. We have united in imploring his aid 
in this our day of trouble, and rebuke, and blasphemy. — 
The Declaration of Independence has been read — that an- 
nouncement of a Nation's birth ; that Gosjiel of national 
and personal liberty, — and cannon peals, and cheers, and 
martial music, have sanctioned it as the utterance of the 
peoples' heart. 

POLITICAL GOSPEL. 

You do well to celebrate this day. It is a day of which 
humanity is proud, and will be prouder yet. On it the 
political Gospel was proclaimed afresh to the world : "All 
men are created equal, and have certain inalienable rights, 
among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." 
More than seventeen hundred years ago, Paul declared to 
fhe Athenians that GfoD " hath made of one blood all ns- 



tions of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth ;" 
but men were not ready to receive it. Now it burst with 
a new light upon the world. From tree to tree, from hill 
to hill, from wave to wave it sped, and proclaimed as it 
went, " d nation is born in a day." 

EARLY TROUBLES. 

Brio-ht as was the halo around the new-born Kepublic, 
it was brought to the font in sadness and gloom, and bap- 
tized with tears and blood. True, the clouds of despair 
roll'd away at length, the child grew comely and strong, 
and began to develope those giant proportions that were 
to occupy a hemisphere ; but, to gather up its unformed 
energies, and unite them into one being, capable of work- 
ing out a noble destiny, was a task full of labor and peril. 

STATES CONSOLIDATED. 

For nearly 13 years after the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence was made, the States were only a Confederacy, 
bound together by what was then admitted to be no better 
than a rope of sand. Dissolution— death, was at the door. 
The wisest sought a remedy, and at length, in a Conven- 
tion over which Washington presided, after much debate, 
jealousy and danger, a Constitution was formed, which, 
when ratified by the people, would unite the hitherto inco- 
herent States into one vast Republican Empire, bound to- 
gether by that indissoluble bond, WE, the peofle. Geor- 
gia, New Jersey, and Delaware, voted themselves out of 
the Confederacy, and into the Union, unanimously ; and 
South Carolina, Maryland, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania, 
by overwhelming majorities. The work of uniting went on 
until, on the 4th of March, 1789, eleven of the States 
having adopted the Constitution, and elected their Eepre- 



aentatives according to its provisions, met in Congress as 
one Nation, under one Constitution. On counting the elec" 
toral votes, George Washington was found to be unan- 
imously elected President, and John Adams, Yice-Presi- 
dent, over the American people. 

Before this, the President of Congress was only chair- 
man of the meeting of the delegates of the several States, 
just as he had been in the Congresses that met while the 
States were yet Colonies of England ; but now he was 
clothed with authority to rule over the " United States of 
America," and the Nation at once, took rank: as an equal 
among the Nations of Europe. 

The fearful crisis was now passed, and so great was 
the relief experienced, that a day of thanksgiving was ob- 
served throughout the land, for the peaceful establishment 
of a National Constitution. 

North Carolina adopted it soon after, and in May, 1790, 
Rhode Island said yes— the last of the "old 13" to hie 
bound — the last to break that bond. 

BEFORE AND AFTER MARCEf 4TH. '89. 

Hereafter, the 4th of March '80, will have an interest 
and sio-uificance scarcely inferior to the 4th of July '70. — 
Let it bo commemorated as the day when the Pilgrims hav- 
ing passed the lied Sea, the wilderness of Shur, and the 
desert of Sin, and having received the law from Mount 
Sinai, turned their faces toward the promised land. 

Previous to this, the States were like a grove of separate 
trees, surrounded by a brush-fence which a spark might at 
any time consume, Now, by a system of branch-grafting 
they become one tree — not a common tree with a single 
trunk and root; but a Ran van, with 13 stately trunks, 



6 

sending the same vital forces to every leaf, and making on« 
common shelter for all who live under its shadow ! 

GROWTH OF THE COUNTRY. 

God appears to have made the Banyan on purpose to 
suggest such a form of government as ours. Destined to 
throw out branches more numerous, and long, and strong 
than any one trunk, however kingly could bear, it drop* 
from its extending arms new trunks wherever they are 
needed, to take root and support and nourish the widening 
growth, and furnish relays of life and strength to the whole 
extending organism. 

So this Nation grows. Scarcely had it commenced its 
new life when, with unwonted vigor, it began its career of 
development, forming trunk after trunk, until now 34 bear 
up the collossal head of this giant Republic, and spread 
its shadow from ocean to ocean. 

' Thus, firm in its immovable strength and perpetuated 
youth, it defies all outward force. Its structure tells us 
that its expansion is without limit, and that the world 
combined cannot overthrow it, and lay its glories in the 
dust. 

ALARMS. 

Then why the dangers of to-day 1 What mean the 
battered, blackened walls of Sumpter; the stars and stripes 
dishonored, torn and trampled on ? Why the beleagured 
Washington ; the blood, and groans, and death in Balti- 
more ; the booming cannon at the Great Bethel, and at 
Vienna ? Why the smouldering ashes of Harper's Ferry ; 
the tramp of hostile squadrons, and the frowning of hostile 
batteries from Pensacola to Washington ? What mean 
the piercing fife and the redoubling drum, that rouse us 



from our dreams of peace, and call upon our jouth in ev- 
ery hamlet to fly to the rescue of our bleeding country, 
with bristling bayonets and 1 timbering cannon ? Why 
shudders, and heaves, and writhes the vast frame of the 
Eepublic, as if the folds of a giant boa were encircling it 
round and round, and crushing out its life ? 



GLANCES AT THE PAST. 



The history is long, the recital painful. I am glad that 
it is necessary to touch only a few cords on Clio's lute, to 
suggest to this well-informed audience the whole series of 
political discords that have at last developed into the over- 
ture of to-day. 

Every one knows, every one feels, that slavery is at the 
bottom of this whole trouble ; that all this blackness and 
darkness is but the pestilential smoke that rises from this 
pit of villany. Forced upon the Colonies by the policy o* 
England, and the unscrupulous avarice of a few planters, 
it gradually spread over the whole land. 



VIRGINIA. 



Virginia made an easy passage from indented whitt 
servants to negro Slaves, As early as 1620, a Dutch Man 
of War landed 20 slaves on the banks of James river, and 
inaugurated the system of tyranny and wrong that is now 
producing its fruits on that perjured land. "Fifty-one years- 
after these slaves were landed, Sir William Berkley, the 
fit representative of the planters and Cavaliers of Vir- 
ginia, with the selfishness so characteristic of aristocracy, 
said " Ministers should pray oftener and preach less. But, 
I thank God, there are no free Schools nor printing ; and 
I hope we' shall not have the,?* 100 years, ftor> Wy> 



us from both." Judging from the present illiterate con- 
dition of Virginia, this prayer was more than answered. 



SO; TH CAROLINA. 

"iS 



South Carolina was a slave-holding aristocracy from its 
birth, and so rapidly did the "institution" prevail that, 
in a few years, the slaves were almost double the number 
of the free. Though its Constitution was the labor of no- 
bles and philosophers, it gave no political freedom to any 
of its subjects ; but was from the first a mercenary, dis- 
honest, ignoble tyranny. 



MARYLAND. 



Lord Baltimore vainly thought that he could form a 
model republic on the basis of an aristocracy. He had 
seen and felt the evils of religious intolerance both in Eng- 
land and in Virginia ; and, although a Roman Catholic, 
bent all the powers of his noble nature to the work of 
founding a Republic, where religious freedom would enable 
his colony to shun all the evils which affected the others. — 
He built St. Mary's, and made it the only home for relig- 
ious freedom then in the wide world. The Catholic from 
England and the Protestant from France, alike found a 
welcome and a. shelter there. The colony prospered, and 
the sanguine proprietor perhaps began to think the day at 
hand, when the lion and the lamb would lie down together j 
and a little child would lead them. 

bat the transition from gentleman and servant, to mas- 
ter and slave was too easy to resist, the tendency of the 
times, and the glowing visions of the pure-minded and 
philanthropic proprietor were destined to wither under the 
bliffhtine influence of a slave aristocracy, until nothing, 
would be left to commemorate his goodness and greatness, 



9 

but the halo cast by the name Baltimore, over a city which 
is now a disgrace alike to him and to us. 

GEORGIA. 

Oglethorpe saw how slavery was spreading its blight 
over the Colonies ; how it degraded and starved the la- 
boring white man, and how it enabled the aristocracy to 
devour the substance of the poor. He therefore resolved 
to found a State where labor would be honorable, and where 
the poor would find a home. He called the State, Georgia. 
No large land owners, no rum, no slavery, equal rights to 
all, were its foundation stones. 

The Colony prospered ; and soon, a few of the more 
wealthy wanted slaves. Oglethorpe had his manly nature 
roused at such a demand, and he answered in words worthy 
of being written in letters of gold. He says : " slavery 
is against the Gospel, as well as the fundamental law of 
England. We refuse, as trustees, to make a law permit- 
ting such a horrid crime. 

But this great man came too late to sterm the flood. He 
soon passed away ; and with his presence departed his 
power. Bum and slaves were both introduced, and Geor- 
gia's peculiar glory departed. 

WHY ENGLAND FORCED THE COLONIES TO RECEIVE SLAVES. 

In forcing the Colonies to allow the importation of slaves 
for the use of those planters who desired them, England 
had two motives : First — The enormous profits of the 
slave trade. 

QUEEN ANN A SLAVE TRADER. 

These were so great, that even crowned heads did not 
think it beneath them to become partners in a monopoly of 
this unholy business of stealing men and selling them. — : 
Philip V. of Spain, and Queen Ann of England, formed 



10 

an alfianee in which each should receive one-fourth of the 
gains that could be made out of all the sons and daugh- 
ters of Africa that could be sold in the Western world. — 
The other half was enough to enlist the enterprise of many 
nobles and merchants in the traffic and to bribe England 
to forbid the Colonics from passing any law unfriendly to 
the slave trade. Thus this powerful patronage broke down 
the opposition of the enlightened and the humane in both 
England and the Colonies, and allowed a few unscrupulous 
planters to pollute the land with the vilest tyranny under 
the sun. For let it be remembered, that England never 
compelled any one to buy slaves, or even to offer them for 
gale ; but only allowed those who wanted them to have an 
opportunity to get them. 

EXPECTED EFFECT UPON THli COLONIES. 

The second object of the British government in forcing 
the Colonies to open their markets for the reception of 
slaves, was thus set forth by a British merchant in 1745. 
" Were it possible for white men to answer the end of ne- 
groes in planting, our Colonies would, interfere with the- 
manufactures of these kingdoms. In such a case indeed 
we might have just reason to dread the prosperity of our 
Colonies ; but while we can supply them abundantly with 
negroes, we need be under no such apprehensions." And 
again : " Negro labor will keep our British Colonies in a 
due subserviency to the interest of their mother country ; 
for while your plantations depend only on negroes, our col- 
onies can never prove injurious to the British manufactures, 
never become independent of their kingdom." The sa- 
gacity of this writer is proved by the history of the 
slave States, — not one of them has competed with Britain 
in manufactures to this day. Not one of them is able to 
make for itself even the whips, or paddles, or fetters, or 



11 

•offling- irons, much less the rerolvers, with which it secure* 
©t tortures the yictiins of its cupidity. 

SLAVERY AFTER THE REVOLUTION. 

After the independence of the Colonies was secured, and 
a constitution formed, slavery languished. It was begin- 
ning to die out, and where most flourishing, was felt to 
be a dead weight on the energies and resources of the 
land. But the introduction of the cotton gin, in 1793, 
gave it new life in the cotton States ; and furnished the 
slave-holders there an opportunity of proving, that their 
" domestic institution " hud not obliterated from them 
every sentiment of honor and gratitude. But they failed 
to do it ; and their treatment of Whitney, the man who 
gave them their wealth and power, was in keeping with 
the principles of selfishness and dishonesty which underlie 
the whole system of slavery. 

SLAVERY PROGRESSES. 

Under the influence of "Whitney's invention, the slave 
power increased in strength and boldness ; until now it 
demands to spread itself without let, or moral or political 
taint, over the whole land. 

Once it was ashamed of its real character. It had not 
the face to outrage the moral sense of the world so far 
as to claim to be right or just. Its claims were asserted 
with many apologies, and much deprecation. Agents and 
abettors, burrowing out of sight, gradually undermined 
public opinion and public morals, wormed into office, and 
played on the easy consciences of politicians, until at length 
slavery dared to look up, and ask countenance from hon- 
est men. 

POLITICAL HERETICS. 

Now it sends forth a new race of political and legal 
2 



12 

commentators; These make an insidious attack on every 
thing noble and humane in the " Magna Charta" of th* 
republic. They so interpret the Declaration, as' to ex- 
clude from its blessings millions of their fellow country- 
men, and tens of thousands of their own children. They 
claim that it has a secret, as well as a revealed meaning ; 
that it was never intended, either by Paul or the Conti- 
nental Congress, to include in its provisions the descen- 
dents of Ham ; but, on the contrary, that even one drop 
of such blood, though mingled with rivers of their own, 
would vitiate all claims to its protection, and make a whiter 
man than either you or me a reprobate. 

POLITICAL INFIDELS. 

These heretical commentators paved the way for a still 
bolder exhibition of the principles which underlie the 
peculiarly loathsome " institution." Its advocates and 
apologists now, with out-spoken and reckless infidelity, 
denounce the whole constitution of freedom, as an absurd 
and dangerous error, or a tissue of " glittering general- 
ities," never intended to be either believed or acted on. 

This infidelity has invaded the Bench and the Bar, until 
the ermine reeks with festering corruption, and no crime 
is punished so surely as a crime against slavery. It has 
invaded the pulpit until the cant, which mourned over 
slavery as an evil which ought to be extirpated but could 
not, is laid aside, and the Bible openly prostituted to up- 
hold the diabolical system, as a Heaven appointed institu- 
tion, that exerts a most benign influence on both the mas- 
ter and the slave. 

This infidelity has found its way into legislative halls ; 
and its champions have insulted the great national assem- 
blies by their presence, defied the majesty of law, broken 



13 

through every constitutional right, and, with characteristic 
brutality, have bullied over Senate and Congress, with 
cane and bowie knife, and revolver. And this Nation — 
this Great American Nation — boasting-of equal rights, a 
free press, stnd free speech — I burn with shame to say it 
bore it all and gave them all they asked. Is it any wonder 
that our Bepresentatives were told to their faces that they 
were cowardly, mercenary, soulless ? that they had been 
bullied into submission, and would be again? Is it any 
wonder that thty called the northerners dough-faces, and 
counted on our submission to their ultimatum ? 

SOUTHERN BARBARISM. 

If such things could be done and said in the National 
Capitol, what might not be expected in the home of this 
unholy tyranny ! The rights of American citizens had 
been recklessly and defiantly trampled on for years. The 
flag which protected the American in every other land, had 
no power in the slave States. There alone it could not 
protect. There, no faith is kept, no oaths are binding, that 
secure to the American citizen the rights he holds so sacred. 
Editors, teachers, lecturers, ministers, mechanics, have 
been driven from their employments, robbed, imprisoned, 
tarred and feathered ! Even females have been stripped, 
scourged, imprisoned, banished ! All this, not by due 
process of law ; but by lawless mobs of southern chivalry, 
led, it maybe by, magistrates, judges, or ministers of the 
Gospel ! And for what *? Because they were American 
citizens ; and thought they had a right to follow a lawful 
occupation, quietly and peaceably, even in a slave State. 
Too late, they find their error. The insulted, injured cit- 
izen invokes the protection of the laws in vain. The 
officers sworn t« prevent illegal violence, despise his ap« 



14 

peal to their solemn oaths of office. The mob, tie rile 
mob, headed perhaps by the perjured official, takes the 
law into its own hands, and the free American citizen suf- 
fers, unheeded, under the very shadow of the National 
flag, while the Government dare not interfere ! 

CANNOT OUR FLAG PROTECT 1 

Is this the Government we have so long worshipped ; 
around which our hearts have clung so devotedly ; whose 
praises we have celebrated so often with music and song ? 
Is this the protection given by the " Star Spangled Ban- 
ner," said so proudly to " wave, o'er the land of the free, 
and the home of the brave?" Is this what it is to be an 
American citizen ? Are we fallen so low ? Is there no 
remedy ? If there is not, let it be known ! Let it be 
shouted on trumpet voice, that there is no other nation on 
the face of the earth sO weak, so despicable as ours. 

TURKEY MORE NOBLE. 

Turkey is so weak that it cannot stand alone; cannot 
enforce its laws ; cannot protect its own citizens in the ex- 
ercise of their legal rights. And it will fall — must fall — 
but it will die bravely. It will try to enforce its laws, up 
to the last. But our government has not tried to do it — 
dared not try. Apparently possessed of giant power and 
inexhaustible resources, it has not had the spirit of maimed, 
mutilated, decrepid Turkey. 

THIS WEAKNESS NOT INHERENT. 

If this feebleness is inherent in the Constitution and 
erganism of our government, it ought to fall — and that 
speedily. Let nobody hinder it. Stand from under ;. 
*nd when the collossal faerie comes crashing- down, let all 
t)»e people say, Amen. 



I* 

But this weakness is not inherent. Ow structure is the 
firmest the world ever saw. Our Constitution, the most 
benign and vigorous a Nation ever owned. It was the 
feeble, corrupt, pusilawiiuous administration of the gov- 
ernment that degraded it so low, and encouraged the des- 
pots of Europe to point the finger at us in scorn, and saj 
aha ! aha ! so would we have it. It was this that made 
Washington the strong-hold of treason ; and, in this latter 
half of the nineteenth century, when even Russia is turn- 
ing slaves into men, made our government the tool of 
slavery propagandists, the engine to turn men into slaves. 

WHAT SHOULD THE PEOPLE DO ! 

Was it wrong for Christians to pray for the end of sueh 
wickedness ? Was it wrong for the people to rise in their 
majesty, and dethrone the foul administration, by their 
votes ? The world answers No ! Heaven answers No ! 

This is all the nation has done ; and so far from repent- 
ing of it, let the People, like the angel in the Apocalypse, 
take a great stone and cast it into the sea, and say : " Thus 
terribly shall this Babel fall, and never more be found at all." 

THE SLAVE STATES PREPARE. 

Although the Slave States had so long ruled the nation' 
their Ahithophels saw the day of reckoning drawing nigh, 
and they prepared for it with characteristic dishonesty. — 
In these preparations, carried on for several years, they 
have shown, that men who sink so lew as to steal the bodies 
and souls of men, are ready to wade through unfathomed 
depths of wickedness to compass their ends. 

PRELIMINARIES. 

They had control of the government offices for many years. 
"They had long filled thens with their dupes or then- teols. 



16 

The places of highest trust and responsibility, they filled, 
as far as possible, with the cream of their chivalry — men 
who would not scruple to lie, steal, rob, murder, burn or 
destroy — if it could only be done under cover — and who 
would consider no oath binding- that interferred with their 
traitorous plans. They put into the Presidential chair, a 
man who could be dipped at will into the traitor's vat, and 
dyed as black as night. 
Thus were settled the preliminaries of the grand debut 

of 1860. 

The President was theirs ; the Senate was theirs ; the 

House was theirs ; the heads of the Departments, and 

through them the Army and Navy, were theirs ; and the 

Supreme Court was theirs. 

THE WORK BEGINS THE TREASURY. 

They were now ready to begin. Plundering could be done 
safely, in violation of oaths and honor, and millions flowed 
into both public and private pockets. The last grand pill- 
age was to be made ; and, reckoning on the cowardice of 
the North — as illustrated too often by our representatives 
at Washington — they thought they could retire with their 
plunder unmolested. 

THE DEFENSES. 

More than plunder, however, was needful to success in 
either rebelling or bullying ; and the army, the navy, and 
the munitions of war, were either in their hands, or out of 
the nation's reach. The loyal States were stripped of their 
defence, and placed fully at the mercy of those intending 
to rebel. 

THE POLLS. 

Under these circumstances, the day of Election came. — 
The People spoke with their silent votes. The corrupt and 



17 

traitorous administration was legally, constitutionally 
righteously deposed. The slave power could rule no more. 
It received its death-blow. 

COTTON STATES REBEL. 

What do the Slaves States now ? Submit to the Consti- 
tution and the laws ? No such thing. They resolve to 
destroy the nation they can no longer rule, as a master 
would the slave who would not obey. 

Without resistance, they seized forts, arsenals, armories, 
navy-yards, mints, mails, revenues — everything they could 
lay their hands on. 

South Carolina led the way — others followed. Officers 
of the army and navy resigned, or betrayed their men, mu- 
nitions, and posts into the hands of the rebels. Armies 
were raised, and officered by those who had been educated 
at the national expense, and who had sworn to defend and 
not to destroy the nation. Everything was in their hands, 
and the work of rebellion seemed finished. 

The nation was alarmed. The government imbecile, 
paralyzed by traitorous counsels, was on the very verge of 
beino; overturned without a strujjo-le. 

Gracious Heaven ! what a destruction we escaped ! — 
Had this nation fallen down the precipice 6ver which it be- 
gan to topple, it would have met its death with a crash that 
would have startled the world, and sent Freedom stagger- 
ing back through centuries of night. 

REBELLION CHECKED. 

But God saved the world from such a calamity. He put 
it into the heart of Major Anderson and his seventy brav« 



18 

Bi«a to occupy and hold Fort Sumpter, right in the mouA, 
of the hydra. 

The loyal States were electrified. The cloud not bigger 
than a human hand, appeared. From Charleston some- 
thing was seen floating over Sumpter. They could not 
believe it. With anxious, excited eye, they look again. — 
The stars and stripes do actually wave on Fort Sumpter ! 
The arch-rebel is baffled, confounded. A Kentucky officer 
dares to be faithful to his flag — true to his oath — and to 
prop the commonwealth in its hour of peril. And, as the 
thousands of slave -holding Virginians quailed before the 
brave, but lawless, John Brown and his nineteen adven- 
turers, so South Carolina quailed before the brave Major 
Anderson and his seventy heroes, as they kept the whole 
State, the whole Confederacy at bay. 

SUMPTER BELEAGUERED. 

Pallid with fear, and boiling with rage, South Carolina 
»ends messengers to Washington, to frighten the old Pres- 
ident into ordering Major Anderson back to Fort Moultrie ; 
but, failing in this, she calls upon her allies to gather 
together and help her to chastise the daring band. Regi- 
ments are gathered and drilled ; batteries erected ; cannon 
mounted under its very walls ; a vessel, bringing provision* 
and reinforcements, and sailing under the national flag, 
was fired into and frightened back ; and, all the while, 
this great nation, through the connivance of its Executive 
with traitors, was made to brook these insults and wrongs ; 
and the fort was compelled to allow itself to be beleagured' 
in silence, until resistance was vain. All this for fear of 
offending the South ! 

SOUTHERN ASSASSINATION COMPANIES. 

Not satisfied with the outrages already committed, the' 



m 

inauguration of Lincoln. They were unwilling to trust 
this aii'air to the slow process of a regular war. The chiv- 
alrous southerners preferred a more safe and genial 
method. Assassination companies were formed, and stock 
publicly taken in them. The bowie knife, the revolver, 
the infernal machine, or even poison might be used approv- 
ingly — slavecrats are not particular about means, more 
than ends — if the " honest man " could only be put out 
of the way. It is written in the history of the times — 
the bloody hand is on the escutcheen of Maryland — that 
the President elect of the United States of America was 
compelled to make his way through Maryland to the Capi- 
tol in disguise, that he might shun the assassin's knife. 

STATE OF THE SHIP. 

It was in this condition — robbed, bound, beleaguered, 
betrayed, dishonored — that the Nation came into the hands 
of the present administration. Never was there a crisis 
so fearful. Traitors on every hand, defection and deser- 
tion every where. The ship of State had been pillaged, 
dismantled, scuttled, and left to sink in the storm of re- 
bellion. 

THE MAN FOR THE RESCUE. 

A bold man is he who would undertake to save it, and 
cautious as bold, and wise as cautious. Thank God ! 
In the day of our peril, the right man was found for Cap- 
tain, the right man for Pilot, the right Officers, and the 
right Crow. None too soon the rescue came ; almost too 
late. 

LINCOLN IN COMMAND. 

The new President examines the state of the Nation : 



JO 

•onsiders its resources ; lays his plans. Fort Pickens, 
rescued from the rebels' grasp by the brave and patriotic 
SleMMEE and his garrison, could hold out a little longer, 
and be relieved at will ; but Fort Sumpter was in distress. 
9000 rebels, with ten times as many cannon as the Fort 
could man, beset it round about. The garrison, exhausted 
by toil and watching, had nearly reached their last biscuit. 
It must starve, or surrender, or be relieved. 

SUMPTER BOMBARDED. 

President Lincoln resolves to provision it. Then was 
a load taken from the Nation's heart. Then was all 
doubt removed ; and the multitudes exclaimed, " thank 
God, we have at last a Government. 

South Carolina could not bear to see the Fort relieved. 
The rebel batteries immediately open fire upon it, and 
inaugurate the war. Shell and red-hot shot are poured 
upon the devoted band of Patriots. The quarters are 
burned out ; the National Flag shot down ; the available 
amunition spent ; and the 70 half-starved men, after a 
most gallant defense, are compelled to evacuate the Fort 
to traitors. 

THE NATION ROUSED. 

Then was the Nation roused. The giant began te 
ghake itself. One dark surge of indignation rolled over 
the loyal States. The cords which had bound them to the 
South, were broken by that cowardly assault on the Na- 
tion's Hag and its brave defenders. 

The traitors soon saw that the die was cast. They had 
threatened and bullied, hoping nnd believing that the 
North weuld be terrified into submission : that we were 



SI 
•ech erayens as would not be roused, even by this outrage. 

THE REKELS ENLIGHTENED. 

But when they saw the call of the President for 75,000 
Volunteers, answered by 100,000 ; his further call for 
85,000 more, answered by 200,000 ; when they saw mil- 
itary stores and munitions of War for the vast hosts, 
created out of almost nothing ; when they saw money 
flow to the Government by millions in a week ; when 
they saw the sublime unity of the north, a change cam* 
over their dream. Now they wish to be let alone; to be- 
all owed to rob and murder in peace. 

MORE REBEL OUTRAGES. 

When they saw that the loyal States were terribly in 
earnest, they strove with frantic rage to keep pace with. 
their anxieties. They established a reign of terror where- 
ever they had control. By the prison, the revolver, the 
halter, they strove to quell the rising loyalty in their 
midst. 

WASHINGTON THREATENED. 

Their troops were hurried towards Washington. They 
Towed to destroy the Capital. Virginia, false and perjured, 
in the very hour of the Nation's peril, forsook her allegi- 
ance at the command of South Carolina, like an obedient 
slave. Treacherous, bloody Baltimore, following in the 
wake of cowardly Virginia, sided with rebels and trai- 
tors, and is kept loyal only by the terror of loyal cannon. 

And now, at this very hour, while we are celebrating 
the day of our Independence, the thickets of Virginia 
twirm witi rebel troops, and bristle with masked batter- 



22 



ies. Richmond has become the Capitol of the rebel con- 
federacy ; and their armies, posted in sight of the dome 
of the Capitol, still insult the Flag of the Union, and 
threaten the destruction of the Nation 



IS THERE REASON" FOIi DEFENSE 



Is it any wonder that the Nation shudders and writhes ? 
Is it any wonder that the shades of Ladd and Whitney, 
and their compatriots, whose blood has baptised the soil 
of Maryland and Virginia, cannot rest, but flit from heart 
to heart, waving the lurid torch of war, and kindling up 
the smouldering fires of patriotism on every altar ? Is 
it any wonder that the tramp of martial squadrons is 
heard in every hamlet, and that serried thousands are 
pouring into the Capitol, to defend it from the foul tread 
^f traitors hosts. 



CONGRESS AND COMPROMISE. 



Shall the Congress that meets in the Capitol to-day, 
only because legions of brave volunteers and hundreds of 
cannon keep the rebels out, be the last in our history ? 
Will the 4th of July, so sacred to every American heart, 
have no inspiration for the statesmen and patriots now 
convened in Washington ? With the rebel army and 
their frowning batteries in sight: with slaughter and des- 
truction breathed openly against every loyal citizen ; 
with a price set on the head of the President and of Gen. 
Scott ; with a mine of treason and rebellion in Balti- 
more, ready to be fired on the first symptom of wavering 
on the part of the Administration, will any one in Con- 
gress dare to talk of compromise ? 



Shade of Washington, rebuke the traitorous thought, 
and breathe thy courage ami majesty into the whole assem- 
bly. Never let the word be heard in Congress, until the 
rebel hordes are rolled back whence they came ; until the 
Stars and Stripes are honored and reinstated ; until ev- 
ery American citizen is protected in his constitutional rights, 
as certainly in Charleston as in Boston. Till then, let no 
one dare to speak of compromise. 

ADVANCE AND CRUSH. 

Let Congress rather give the word " advance ! " And 
as General Scott, our "Iron Duke," bends the adaman- 
tine arms of the " united North" around the rebel hosts, 
to crush out this rebellion, let it never be said that he 
was hindered an hour for lack of strong hands and brave 
hearts. 

Already I hear the word "advance!" as it flies from 
post to post, and stirs the souls of our brave defenders 
with its welcome sound. I hear the booming cannon at 
Fairfax. I see the outposts of the enemy driven in, and 
their squadrons flying in terror from their defenses. 

GOD IS FOR THE RIGHT. 

The God of freedom has already commenced to send 
dismay and confusion upon them. Their deep laid 
plans do not work out smoothly. The chariot wheels of 
rebellion drive heavily. The ...iters begin to return, and 
the National banners to triumph. The right will prevail. 

May these Banners never again be trampled on. May 
those who so nobly rally around the standard of loyalty 
now, and bear it onward through fire and smoke and 
blood, never have reason to curse bitterly those who 



J4 



•ame not tip te the help of the Lord against th« 
mighty. 



CONCLUSION. 



Let the hands of Lincoln and Scott be made strong 
to-day, as the millions of the loyal States offer up their 
gratitude to God, for raising up such men for such a 
time. Gathering around the " Star Spangled Banner " 
in every village and hamlet, let us send up such a shout 
for our country, as shall sweep the last hope of success 
from the rebel leaders ; and, echoing from wave to wave 
oyer the oceans, tell the "Old "World" that the United 
States of America are not a failure, but such a success as 
shall not grow old till " mountains melt, and skies in 
smoke decay." 

"While we buckle on the armor and prove ourselves 
worthy of the freedom we have so long enjoyed, let us 
remember, that not only in numbers and in rilled cannon 
rests our safety ; but in the Lord of hosts. Let us bring 
our Nation, with its sins and dangers, to his footstool, and 
commit it to his keeping. Let us ask him to make bare 
his arm again, as he did when he led it safely through the 
War of Independence, and rebuked the Nation that de- 
lighted to oppress. 

Again we say, God bless the United States of Amer- 
ica ! 

GOD SAVE THE NATION ! 

11 Guard it from all who dare oppose ; 

Preserve it great and free ; 
From open and from secret foes, 

ffm force and perfidr. 



J5 

1 Confound whoe'er its ruin seek, 

Or into friends convert : 
Its bulwark thou, in safety keep ; 
Give it the Peoples' heart. 

" Still let us pray, and never cease, 
Defend it, Lord, defend ; 

Stablish it firm in righteousness, 
And save it to the end." 



*ff 60 



